#alyssaward

[alyssa-ward]

Alyssa Ward and the Curse of the Hanged Men

It started with a cup of coffee.

Alyssa sat in the park at Lion’s rest in the early morning, a cup of coffee brewed from the Recluse sitting beside her on the bench, a sandwich of eggs and ham to her other side, and her sketchbook open in her lap as she worked on a new design.  That should have been it, a quiet start to her day.  Yet she couldn’t help but continue to notice the Kaldorei man nearby, leaning against one of the lamp posts in the park, struggling to keep his eyes open.

The man looked a mess, pale, bags under his eyes, hair all a tangle.  He wore the garb and uniform of the Night’s Watch of Duskwood, but for all appearances, he’d watched for far too many nights.  

“Y’look like y’need this more than I do.”  Alyssa lifted the coffee cup, gesturing towards him with it.

That elicited a chuckle.  The man making a crack about how rude it was to call out his obviously exhausted appearance.  Still, he took her offer all the same, sitting beside her on the bench to nurse the cup of coffee while they talked.  It came to light as they spoke that he’d befallen some sort of curse while researching a series of murders in Duskwood.  He spoke briefly of a legend involving the Hanged Men of Deadwind pass.  Even now outside and above the tower of Karazhan, bodies swayed by the neck from dead trees, long forgotten.  Myths and rumors had abound for years that they would come to life and attack passer bys.  Only a myth.

Curses, the purview of Witches and Warlocks.  Not exactly Alyssa’s area of expertise, her knowledge focused on demons, but even so, “‘ave y’considered tryin’ t’find someone ‘o knows curses ‘ere in Stormwind?  Anyone that might be able t’elp figure out ‘ow t’break it?”

He hadn’t, of course, and for the obvious reasons.  The same reason she hadn’t said as much of herself so far.  How do you openly ask for a Warlock in Stormwind while avoiding the stockade?

Alyssa sighed, “Right...I can ‘elp you.  M’like as not an idiot f’offerin’ it t’a stranger, but y’obviously need it.  Don’t make me regret this?”

(Cut for length, and NSFW Violence content below)

As night fell the day following, Alyssa found herself riding slowly through Westfall towards the bridge that lead to Duskwood.  Far too many of the problems in her life have centered around this particular path.  Damien.  Raen.  Mackerel.  Name after name of issues and complications that have walked this very road.  Yet here she found herself.

She’d met Grey again, the Night Watchman from the day before earlier.  Her night previous spent pouring through her books on curses, an aspect of her ‘profession’ if it could be called such, that she had largely neglected.  The description he gave of his condition gave her some points to work with.  When Grey slept, his dreams were vivid and vibrant, as though seeing through the eyes of another creature.  When he slept in Duskwood while researching these deaths, the eyes he saw through crept through familiar woods, drawing ever closer to him, startling him awake.

When he came to Stormwind to seek aid, and slept here, the eyes stalked the outside of the Walls, working their way into the city.  Whatever had done this to the man was stalking him.  Either closing in his dreams, or relentlessly pursuing, she wasn’t sure, but ultimately the recommendation she made was simple.  “Y’need t’sleep.  Let me watch over you.  M’pets and I will stop whatever comes.  M’specialization is summonin’.  Give me access t’the thing ‘untin’ you, and I can either stop it, or figure out what controls it.”

The man, exhausted as he was agreed, willing to try anything at this point, including put his faith in this odd practitioner of fel magic who so good naturedly offered her aid.  So they agreed to meet at the border to Duskwood, he wished to retrieve some supplies from the Watch, and she needed a place she could fully practice her art without risk of bringing the guard down on them.

So she found herself on that road.  Up ahead the wooden bridge that separated Westfall from Duskwood.  She spurred her mount on, more brazen about her magic here.  Haag, one of her two hounds materialized beside her, shedding its usual cloak of invisibility as it romped alongside the horse.  Vix, her other, was already ahead, watching over the Kaldorei.

Even as she approached, there was a sense of something wrong.  Flickers in the corners of her eyes, like silhouettes moving around her.  The distant chiming of bells, though she was certain they were too far from Darkshire proper to hear them from here.  As she closed, she noticed a form slumped against one of the bridge supports.  Grey sitting there, had found his exhaustion got the best of him, and the man slept.

“Idiot.  Y’were supposed t’wait f’me.”  She sighed as she hopped off her horse.  There was supposed to be more time to prepare.  The warlock knelt in the dust, quickly sketching out the strongest summoning circle she could produce in short order.

The bells chimed louder as she worked, speaking in low demonic, holding up a soulstone.  Rebecca Mills.  That was the name on the gem when she took it out of her collection.  Never use one without remembering where it came from.  “Thank you f’this Miss Mills.”  Muttered as part of her incantation.

A roar across the bridge, and her hazel eyed gaze flickered up for only a moment to take in the thing she faced as part of this.  Mostly human in form, with a burlap sack over its head.  A rope hung from its neck like a noose, and its hands elongated out into wicked claws.  Another roar, and it charged, not at the sleeping man, but at her.

Alyssa’s palm slammed down in the centre of the circle, smashing the Soul gem into the structure, and from it sprang forth a Wrathguard, ripped from the Twisting Nether to this plane, the most powerful demon she could reasonably maintain control over.  “Protect me.”  She shouts a quick command as the hanged man’s claws tear along the bridge.

As quickly, it ended.  Grey’s eyes snapped open in a panic, and the creature vanished in a puff of smoke just before the Demon could meet its charge.  Alyssa stood braced, felfire already forming in her palms.

“Alyssa, I’m sorry.  I saw through its eyes as it charged.”

“Y’should’ve stayed asleep.  I could ‘ave andled it.”  She sighed, moving to offer him a hand up.  “At least I know what it is now.  It looked physical, touchable.  We can fight that.”

The man still wanted his supplies though, and to see this handled at the source, the place he was certain he was cursed.  Deadwind pass.  So they walked through the night.

They spoke at length as they traveled.  He told her about being part of the Night Watch, of the creatures that lurked in Duskwoods shadows.  She told him of fighting in Hillsbrad, of surviving on the edge of Alliance lands.

He confessed he wasn’t sure she wasn’t crazy, and could actually help him until the moment he woke, seeing her standing ready for battle with a powerful demon at her side.  That meeting in the park, she looks so innocuous.

For Alyssa though, this project was invigorating.  She felt alive, excited.  In the months since she’d come to Stormwind, her life’s complications had become about interpersonal relationships.  Subterfuge, saying the right things to the right people.  Tact and complication, nothing the last four years of her life had prepared her for.  This though.  Summoning demons to fight monsters in the night, this is Alyssa’s wheelhouse, what she’s good at.

(Some suggested listening for the rest of this post.  Lady Maria - Bloodborne The Old Hunters OST)

“Why are you helping me?”  The man stops her at the entrance to Deadwind pass as her Wrathguard scouts ahead.

“Y’needed it.”

“Is it really that simple?”

Alyssa sighs, “Y’needed specialized ‘elp that not many can give you.  Y’were in a dire situation that could ‘ave ended badly at any time, well before y’could find anyone else t’do it.  If I turned you away, y’could be dead by now, I couldn’t ‘ave that on my conscious.  M’not as good a person as m’brother is, but I still want t’make ‘im proud.  Y’don’t learn what I know without ‘avin regrets, ‘elpin’ you solve this lets me balance m’books as it were.”

He seems satisfied with the answer, “Well I owe you after this.”  He leads the way deeper into the pass, past hanging bodies, and onto the bridge of cracked stone that spans the gap over the canyon below.  “Does this work for your purposes?”

“It does, I like a chokepoint.  ‘Opefully it comes at us from the Duskwood side, but I can adapt.”  She orders the Wrathguard into a defensive stance as she draws fire into her hands.

“Good, I’m so exhausted I could sleep anywhere.  I’ll wake if it looks like you’re in danger.”

A nod of assurance from the Warlock, and the man lays himself in the center of the bridge, letting slumber overtake him almost immediately.  The exhaustion of his curse, of their travels, carrying him away.

Silhouettes in the corners of her vision and the chiming of bells.  Alyssa braces herself, both of her hands dripping liquid felfire.  On the Duskwood side of the bridge, the Wrathguard stands ready, massive axes in its hands.  The creature hates her for this, but in the moment, that doesn’t matter.  At her side, Vix and Haag, her loyal hounds, some of the first demons she summoned, and her constant companions.  

The thing crawls up the pass on all fours, claws digging into stone, the rope around its neck dragging along the path.  And then another.  And then another.  The sound of claws on stone pull her attention behind her, and she whirls to find more of the hanged men amassing along the edge of the bridge on the Swamp of Sorrows side.  Echoing chunks of climbing creatures sound up the valley, and a brief glance over the edge shows more of them ascending from the pass.

One she felt confident in.  This though is well beyond expectations.  “They don’t pass you f’anythin’.”  She shouts back to the Wrathguard as it sets its massive form to protect one side of the bridge, meeting the first charge with a clash of axe blades, sending ichor and burlap and limbs spattering across the stone.

Trust.  People are hard to trust.  Demons she controls are easy, the guard may hate her, but it has her back, and so she focuses on her side of the bridge.  “Haag, Vix, go.”  The felhounds charge forward as the hanged men start to advance.  One goes high, the other low as they tackle one of the creatures to the ground together, ripping into it.  An arm flies into the gorge, ichor slicks the bridge on that side too.

Alyssa flashes back to the basement in Gilneas so very long ago.  Similarly trapped, pinned in by ravenous creatures.  Now though she’s so very much more experienced, her mastery of Felfire much more controlled.  She pours gouts of liquid fire from her palms, sickly green spraying across Hanged Man after Hanged Man, sending flaming beasts careening over the bridges edge to crash into the ones still climbing, toppling them to the river below.  Still they come.

There’s a rumble beneath her feet, the faint sound of cracking stone as more and more of them pile onto the narrow outcropping of earth that connects the two sides of the canyon.  A reminder that the bridge is natural, not made.  She ignores it, stepping backwards as her and her demons are pressed in closer to the sleeping Kaldorei.  

She loses sight of her demonic hounds in the pile, until a whimpered yelp sounds, and she sees one of the Hanged Men lift Haag into the air, impaled through on massive claws.  The creature rends her hound, and sends its lifeless body over the edge into the abyss, drawing a startled cry from Alyssa’s lips.  “No…”  She lays down more fire, forming a wall of Felfire between her and the creatures, and more of them pile against it, burning and charring.  

The bridge is slick with ichor, fire, and demon blood, and moment by moment, Alyssa can feel herself weakening.  She’s poured too much into this fight already.  She needs to wake the Elf, come at this again after some rest, with more help.

Hazel eyes turn for a moment back towards him, just in time to see one axe fall, than the other as the Wrathguard at the other end of the bridge is overwhelmed.  Torn to pieces by the creatures.  Demonic blood, the smell of copper and the ozone scent of the Twisting Nether as the Wrathguard dies screaming.

The moment of distraction is enough, as one of the hanged men leaps through her wall of flame, tackling the warlock to the ground beside Grey.  Her head strikes the stone, dizzying her, sending stars flashing through her eyes.  Then a sharp stab of pain as a hand full of claws spike through her shoulder, grinding against bone as they punch through skin and muscle into the bridge below.

“You ‘ave t’wake up,” she shouts in a panic, trying to use another wash of Felfire from her palm shoved into the creature’s burlap covered face.  Its other claws rake along her side as it scrambles for purchase.  There’s another crack and rumble of earth.

The world collapses.  The strain of more bodies and battle as the swarms of Hanged Men flood the tenuous expanse overwhelms it.  The bridge crumbles under the weight, sending Alyssa, Grey’s unconscious form, and the Hanged Masses into the canyon below.  She has time to shriek in terror, twisting in the air as she plummets, trying to angle herself to miss the jagged rocks that line the narrow river.  She can feel her form twist and change as she does so, the adrenaline and panic bringing out the beast within.

The river is choked with bodies and dark ichor.  Muddy churned bottom, it’s practically black.  The fall feels like it takes forever, the world in slow motion.  Time to regret.  Time to worry about what Damien will think.  About her friends who constantly warn her not to tackle things like this alone.  

The warlock strikes water, and the world goes dark.

To be continued obviously.

Mentions to @dardillien-ward and to @kel-greyleaf!

Relevance I’m sure to many people, but Alyssa has at least contacted @alliesweetsong-wra; @thetobaccoman; and a character of @valdim-heyworth as part of leaving on this journey.

(Updated with Grey’s Tumblr)

[alyssa-ward]

One Last Job (Part 1)

Alyssa finishes packing the rest of the clothes she’ll need for the trip, stuffing her back pack as full as she can with carefully rolled dresses, and basic essentials.  She’s hoping to travel light, some of what she needs can be acquired when they get to their destination after all.  She stops, looking at herself in the mirror in her room at the Recluse.  Riding pants tailored for her, a comfortable tunic, traveling boots.  Her fiery red hair done up in a bun to keep it out of the way.  The young woman takes a slow breath, everything about this job, what little she knows about it, seems like a bad idea.  A trip to Silvermoon, illusions to hide their identities, bribes and intimidation.  If she felt like she had any choice in the last thing she did for Clyde to win back her life, it certainly wouldn’t be this.  A deal is a deal though.

She emerges from the Inn, stopping to lean against a light post and wait.  Tracker made it clear a man would be meeting her to guide the way, and before long at all, one does.  He calls himself Mover, identifies himself to the Gilnean woman, and tells her it’s time to go.  There’s little formality, little even congeniality.  The man, simple though he is, is all business, and so Alyssa treats it as such.

He lead her to a back alley where a relatively well appointed carriage awaited.  The ride, he says, will be long, but at the very least Alyssa is to be afforded comfort for the trip.  It’s a surprise, that for so long a travel she’s given this extravagance, but really it brings no cause to complain.  Before long she’s settled into the comfortable interior, the horses are rumbling along the streets of Stormwind and out into Elwynn, and Alyssa has fallen into a comfortable nap, lulled by the ride.

Aly jars awake at a thump on the top of the Carriage as it starts to slow.  The man above warning her as they go to pass through a checkpoint.  Horses come to a stop, and muffled voices are heard beyond as Mover negotiates with the guards.  A few moments later a knock on the door of the carriage and it opens.

“Miss, we’ll be needin’ to see your papers.”  The guard looks...not as bored as she’s used to when she travels.

Alyssa rubs sleep from her eyes as she tries to process his accent.  Redridge maybe, that would make sense.  “Yeah, yeah o’course.”  She digs into her backpack, coming up with the sheaf of paperwork that states her identity.  Using it isn’t an entirely foreign concept, she has reason enough after all to travel up to Hillsbrad on occasion.

“Ma’am, are you aware you and your driver may be wanted for crimes against the crown?”  He stands comfortably at attention but she realizes his hand rests on the hilt of his sword.

“M’sorry?”  That wakes her up right quickly.  “If you’ll just ‘ave a look at m’papers, you’ll see m’not any trouble.  M’driver is just takin’ me up t’illsbrad.  You can see I own property there, I’d like t’check in on it and do some repairs.”  She finds at least that calm comes naturally, it helps that even with the actual activities they are up to, she’s got legitimate reasons to travel.

The guard looks over her paperwork, and calls another over, “Just wait in the carriage Miss.”  She sighs and sits back as they walk away to discuss.  It feels like forever passes, and she’s almost starting to drift again before the men return, passing it back.  “It looks like everythin’ is in order ma’am.  Sorry for the delay.” 

It isn’t until the carriage door is closed and the horses are moving again that she finds herself breathing a sigh of relief.

“Why’re we bein’ stopped at every checkpoint.”  Alyssa asks, a few days later.  The scene repeats, again and again as they pass through Alliance held lands.  Not once has she been stopped like this before.  She gracelessly drops to one of the logs around the fire Mover has built, and gets not but a shrug in reply.

“This’ll be on m’records now.  Like as not every time in the future I want t’travel North it’ll come up that I’ve been stopped.  Just another way o’tightenin’ the noose and makin’ it ‘ard t’get m’life back?”  Another shrug, and she makes an exasperated sound.  They haven’t even reached Silvermoon, and already every moment of this trip has been a series of regrets.

Arathi is beautiful, even when it’s dreary.  Alyssa’s elbows rest on the sill of the carriage window, chin on folded arms as she watches the green rolling hills pass by.  They’ve made it far enough north that she feels a bit more like home.  Hillsbrad isn’t so far away, and already the weather is turning to the familiar.  Beyond that, Gilneas.  It makes her sad that they’ll be passing all that by, heading up through the ruins of Alterac on their way North instead.

It’s a few moments to reflect on how bad off this whole part of the world is.  She’s not the only one to have lost her home.  Gilneas.  Hillsbrad.  Stromgarde.  Alterac.  Lorderon.  So many kingdoms with so much to offer the world, snuffed out over the course of her all too short lifetime.  Any one of those would have made a fine home that felt more fitting to who she is and the places she wants to be.  Instead there’s Stormwind, last bastion of Humanity in so many ways.

She sighs, closing her eyes, and falls sleep again to the movement of the carriage and the first drops of rain pattering on the roof.

The orb swirls with unsettling blues.  Mover stares at her as it sits between them.  She shivers a bit, even with the heavy coat she wears and the fire they sit near.  Northern Alterac is cold, there’s still snow on the ground up here.  It’s easy to find reasons to stall, as the horses paw and snort in the chill.

“Right.  I’ll touch it.  ‘ow bad could it be?”  The orb is meant to create the illusion that’s supposed to last her the next week or so.  She’s been warned it would be painful.  Can’t be worse than her affliction.  Alyssa places a firm hand on the orb, grasping it tightly, and immediately doubles over, gritting teeth but refusing to cry out.

It feels not unlike being burned by felfire, or at least what she must imagine it feels like.  She’s only inflicted it, never endured it.  The burning starts behind her eyes, feeling like it’s searing through her head.  Still, pain is something Alyssa finds at times to be a comfort, she bites lip hard enough to draw blood as she endures, short sharp breaths from her nose, tremors in her shoulders.

Then as quickly as it began, it’s ended.  The pain gone, and Alyssa slowly draws hands off of the orb, studying her now more dainty digits.  She was already pretty, relatively slim, well cared for.  Things feel different now, and she touches sharper cheekbones, and traces hands up long pointed ears.  “Ow...” she offers quietly, marveling at the depth of the illusion.

Days later, the carriage comes to a stop in the main drag of Silvermoon City.  The door is open, and Alyssa steps out, her fiery red hair now tumbling down over shapely slim shoulders, and framing an angular face.  Her hazel eyed gaze replaced with a wicked fel green all too fitting for the young warlock.  She’s dressed in the Sin’dorei style, a gown of reds and golds befitting her supposed standing for the false identity she’s been given.

“Cousin!  How was the lodge Alyreia?”  The familiar voice greets her, the man she knows as Tracker.  He kisses each of her cheeks in greeting.  “Welcome to Silvermoon.”

Welcome to Silvermoon.  One leg of this job down, so very very far, she fears, yet to go.

@thetobaccoman for mentions

@dardillien-ward, @valdim-heyworth‘s player, @earendelduskmourn for relevance

[damien-ward]

(Awww Alyssa is playing a very dangerous game here.. but at least this is her last job. The orb changing her appearance was cool as well!)

One Last Job (Part 1)

Alyssa finishes packing the rest of the clothes she’ll need for the trip, stuffing her back pack as full as she can with carefully rolled dresses, and basic essentials.  She’s hoping to travel light, some of what she needs can be acquired when they get to their destination after all.  She stops, looking at herself in the mirror in her room at the Recluse.  Riding pants tailored for her, a comfortable tunic, traveling boots.  Her fiery red hair done up in a bun to keep it out of the way.  The young woman takes a slow breath, everything about this job, what little she knows about it, seems like a bad idea.  A trip to Silvermoon, illusions to hide their identities, bribes and intimidation.  If she felt like she had any choice in the last thing she did for Clyde to win back her life, it certainly wouldn’t be this.  A deal is a deal though.

She emerges from the Inn, stopping to lean against a light post and wait.  Tracker made it clear a man would be meeting her to guide the way, and before long at all, one does.  He calls himself Mover, identifies himself to the Gilnean woman, and tells her it’s time to go.  There’s little formality, little even congeniality.  The man, simple though he is, is all business, and so Alyssa treats it as such.

He lead her to a back alley where a relatively well appointed carriage awaited.  The ride, he says, will be long, but at the very least Alyssa is to be afforded comfort for the trip.  It’s a surprise, that for so long a travel she’s given this extravagance, but really it brings no cause to complain.  Before long she’s settled into the comfortable interior, the horses are rumbling along the streets of Stormwind and out into Elwynn, and Alyssa has fallen into a comfortable nap, lulled by the ride.

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[damien-ward]

(Oh wow! Such an amazing journey Alyssa has embarked on, quite an interesting curse too! Damien would, and will, definitely worry about Alyssa and where she is, but he would be super proud of her if knew what she was doing to help Grey. It seems investigative work just runs in the family.)

Alyssa Ward and the Curse of the Hanged Men

It started with a cup of coffee.

Alyssa sat in the park at Lion’s rest in the early morning, a cup of coffee brewed from the Recluse sitting beside her on the bench, a sandwich of eggs and ham to her other side, and her sketchbook open in her lap as she worked on a new design.  That should have been it, a quiet start to her day.  Yet she couldn’t help but continue to notice the Kaldorei man nearby, leaning against one of the lamp posts in the park, struggling to keep his eyes open.

The man looked a mess, pale, bags under his eyes, hair all a tangle.  He wore the garb and uniform of the Night’s Watch of Duskwood, but for all appearances, he’d watched for far too many nights.  

“Y’look like y’need this more than I do.”  Alyssa lifted the coffee cup, gesturing towards him with it.

That elicited a chuckle.  The man making a crack about how rude it was to call out his obviously exhausted appearance.  Still, he took her offer all the same, sitting beside her on the bench to nurse the cup of coffee while they talked.  It came to light as they spoke that he’d befallen some sort of curse while researching a series of murders in Duskwood.  He spoke briefly of a legend involving the Hanged Men of Deadwind pass.  Even now outside and above the tower of Karazhan, bodies swayed by the neck from dead trees, long forgotten.  Myths and rumors had abound for years that they would come to life and attack passer bys.  Only a myth.

Curses, the purview of Witches and Warlocks.  Not exactly Alyssa’s area of expertise, her knowledge focused on demons, but even so, “‘ave y’considered tryin’ t’find someone ‘o knows curses ‘ere in Stormwind?  Anyone that might be able t’elp figure out ‘ow t’break it?”

He hadn’t, of course, and for the obvious reasons.  The same reason she hadn’t said as much of herself so far.  How do you openly ask for a Warlock in Stormwind while avoiding the stockade?

Alyssa sighed, “Right…I can ‘elp you.  M’like as not an idiot f’offerin’ it t’a stranger, but y’obviously need it.  Don’t make me regret this?”

(Cut for length, and NSFW Violence content below)

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